Congestion: Problems when use exceeds capacity at a point in a network, which can frustrate demand

Cell: The area in which mobile services are delivered wirelessly with capacity shared by all connected subscribers

Applications: Specific types of services mobile subscribers may use such as streaming, downloading or web browsing

Media: Type of content being accessed on a mobile device, such as video and/or audio, which may have quality sensitivities to speed of delivery

Allocate bandwidth: Determining how much of shared access each subscriber session uses in real time, which could get as fine as selecting among adaptive bitrate video profiles

The Vasona SmartAIR1000 is a pioneering edge application controller. It intelligently enables mobile operators to enhance subscriber quality of experience (QoE) without having to undertake expensive and complex upgrades of raw capacity. The SmartAIR1000 integrates openly between a mobile network core and its radio access networks (RAN). From this

key position, it assesses subscriber sessions from the crucial perspective of precisely when and how congestion occurs in each cell, along with the characteristics of all applications and media at that point. When congestion occurs, the SmartAIR1000 dynamically and seamlessly manages capacity to intelligently allocate bandwidth according to each session’s requirements.

RAN behavior: Patterns and occurrences within each of what could be thousands of cell sectors of a radio access network

NOC: Network operations center from which personnel and systems monitor the network, assess data about activities, and perform diagnostics and troubleshooting

Comprehensive view: Including home and roaming customers, devices, bandwidth, application sessions, and RAN control messaging such as attaching, transitioning between idle and active, or handover

Performance: Utilization of resources and impact on quality considerations such as streaming bitrate and session latency

Vasona SmartVISION is a software suite for analysis of RAN behavior and the effect on mobile customer experiences. Deployed in the NOC, it has a centralized view of how each cell sector performs in terms of latency, congestion and subscriber QoE. SmartVISION imparts visibility network-wide and within each cell in real-time, and also performs insightful historical

analysis on trends including diagnosis of deteriorating conditions. The suite facilitates monitoring and managing SmartAIR edge application controllers deployed in a network. SmartVISION’s comprehensive view of each cell is unparalleled, enabling operators to assure best experiences, enhance network performance, and gain control over investments in upgrades and expansions.

The challenges of operators' substantial investments in infrastructure & subscribers' embraces of advanced technologies to keep up with demand dynamics is exposed by wireless telephone service ranking 44th of 49 industries / sectors in customer satisfaction, trailing gasoline & fast food, but at least ahead of some like airlines & government.

Vasona Networks' benefits map to industry needs

Subscribers expect more and better mobile application experiences

Vasona Networks

®

collaborates with mobile operators to overcome network challenges and fulfill this demand

Mobile capabilities are rapidly advancing -- we download more applications, access more types of media, utilize more phone features for richer experiences. Mobile operators are responding by building new cell towers, upgrading network technologies, integrating more deeply with the Internet. Yet, our experiences don't always fulfill our expectations despite operators racing to keep up with us.

Vasona Networks

®

is dedicated to elevating the capabilities of mobile operators so that subscribers have the experiences they seek. This is an especially tricky proposition over networks that are largely unwired and subject to high variability from diverse factors. Vasona Networks brings together excellence in multiple relevant fields from mobile configuration to video processing to real-time network performance analysis.

The result is the industry's first edge application controller, which integrates openly, transparently and immediately with mobile networks of any generation. Dynamic assessment of demand and operating conditions is combined with the operator’s business rules to take precise action when necessary for best provision of services. Mobile network operators leverage these capabilities to intelligently provide us with the application experiences that we all expect and deserve.

News

Vasona Networks unveiled the latest feature set for its SmartAIR1000 edge application controller and SmartVISION analysis suite, both aimed at addressing all that HTTPS traffic coming from streaming media, social networking and other popular apps.

The company also is rolling out a SmartConnect feature to share real-time data collected by its platforms with third-party systems, and a SmartVision Daily Dashboard feature that provides regular network performance and user experience reporting.

SmartAIR now assesses characteristics of encrypted content from application types such as streaming, social media, email and file transfers and can intelligently manage their resource usage during periods of network congestion.

The solution provides mobile operators with a way to manage the rising share of encrypted applications and content. There's an increasing trend of encrypting, and "with HTTPS really becoming prevalent, we're seeing the proportion of traffic rapidly going from 8 to 12 percent a few years ago" to something that is rapidly approaching 50 percent in some places, said John Reister, vice president of marketing and product at Vasona Networks.

According to the Automatic Terminal Information Service, almost 25% of all traffic on mobile networks today is encrypted, and operators require additional tools to be able to properly manage that traffic. The ability to assess the characteristics of encrypted content from various application types is key. This traffic might consist of streaming media, social media, e-mail and file transfers that all could have differences as to the correct level of performance and prioritization with their networks. As the amount of encrypted traffic increases, it becomes more difficult to support these requirements without being able to distinguish between different types of traffic for bandwidth management purposes.

There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about encrypted traffic as more and more users become aware of options to ensure their data stays private. The reality is that it makes it much more complicated for mobile operators to provide differentiation of the transport provided by their networks and opens up opportunities for over-the-top players to take advantage of this situation. Tools that help the operators better understand the type of traffic moving along their network, while protecting privacy, helps them stay on top of the challenge of OTT traffic traversing their network and potentially create new service offers and partnerships as a result.

Newest platform capabilities include solving mobile operations challenges that stem from HTTPS traffic sent by streaming media, social networking and other popular apps

Vasona Networks, Inc.®, a provider of platforms for intelligent management of mobile network capacity and resources, today announces the latest feature set for its SmartAIR™1000 edge application controller and SmartVISION™ analysis suite. Mobile operators gain a much-needed solution for managing the rising share of encrypted applications and content, which already accounts for nearly 25 percent of traffic on networks. In addition, the company is rolling out the SmartCONNECT feature to share real-time data collected by its platforms with third-party systems, and a SmartVISION Daily Dashboard feature that provides regular network performance and user experience reporting.

“With HTTPS on the rise, operators need better visibility and management of live encrypted traffic to deliver the best experiences for all users when networks are congested,” says John Reister, vice president of marketing and product, Vasona Networks. “The latest enhancements to SmartAIR and SmartVISION are direct results of our close collaboration with customers who stress the need to better manage HTTPS traffic and gain more actionable analysis about network conditions that can be shared with relevant teams and systems.”

SmartAIR now assesses characteristics of encrypted content from application types such as streaming, social media, email and file transfer, and can intelligently manage their resource usage during periods of network congestion. As the share of encrypted traffic rises, this is vital for delivering the best experiences across all users. With this functionality, Vasona Networks achieves a key distinction, since encrypted traffic can be completely opaque for other approaches to bandwidth management.

Additional functionality being announced today includes:

SmartCONNECT: Third-party analytics or policy systems can gain access to crucial user QoE (quality of experience) and cell performance data via API-based communication. This insight can guide a broad range of activities such as network management, marketing and customer support.

SmartVISION Daily Dashboard: Regular distribution of reporting and analysis to key mobile network operator personnel about levels and trends in traffic across applications and cells

HTTPS-compatibility and Daily Dashboard are being made available for all deployments, while Vasona SmartCONNECT is an option customers can elect to activate. Vasona Networks will show its latest solutions at its booth in Hall 2 at Stand 2D50 during Mobile World Congress, March 2-5 in Barcelona.

Mobile operators are investing significantly in the speed, performance and availability of mobile broadband networks. These are worthwhile and timely initiatives, according to a recent Vasona Networks, Inc.® survey of UK smartphone users. The user survey found that high expectations for flawless wireless data performance are widespread:

• 68% of respondents expect good mobile broadband performance all of the time, with no hiccups or periods of unavailability;

• 62% cite waiting for web pages to load as the most frustrating aspect of slow mobile data speeds;

• Consumers blame their mobile service providers more than any other party when apps don’t work as expected;

• Only 33% would recommend their service provider to a friend looking for great mobile broadband performance; and

• Nearly a quarter of consumers (24%) cite performance as the most important factor when choosing a mobile operator; it came second only to price as a consideration.

How encryption threatens mobile operators, and what they can do about it

January 22, 2015

An operator may always heavily compress certain types of video at all times. Yet doing that for all users in all cells, whether congested or not, is a clumsy and often ineffective use of resources. Why not give users access to higher resolution video if the network can support it, rather than always limit the experience?

Vasona’s John Reister tells me that the company’s SmartAIR platform provides operators with a new sort of edge-based, or cell-based, optimization that can allocate radio resources on a cell-by-cell basis, so that applications can be optimized to local conditions. This adapts bandwidth resources to the actual needs of the customer, and the actual conditions in a cell at any one time. You can’t do that if you set up a rule on a server that optimizes all content of a certain type no matter what.

Reister continues to posit that a further driver for this need for edge-based adaptation is that within their current optimization platforms operators cannot see encrypted content. That means that the normal processes they take to optimize content are rendered unworkable. And that’s a problem because there’s an increasing amount of encrypted forms of content, indeed of data in its entirety, of all types – but especially from the big social network, applications and video providers.

Vasona Networks recently surveyed 1,000 U.K. smartphone users regarding their expectations for customer experience of their data services. The expectations are high. Sixty-eight percent expect good performance all of the time without any problem areas. Almost one quarter of users would choose a mobile provider based on performance over price. But when there is a problem the blame falls on the operator, not potentially the content provider. The good news is that when the service is good, 33% will recommend their provider to a friend. What is their biggest headache? Slow Web page loading was cited by 62% of those surveyed as their highest frustration.

This isn’t limited to the UK. Vasona Networks conducted a similar study in the United States earlier in the year and found consistent results. This should put the operators on alert to the key requirements for customer experience expectations.

Field results validate the approach. Cellcom in the United States recently implemented Vasona Networks’ SmartAIR1000 edge application controller, achieving improvements of more than 30% in bitrate performance for video and web browsing, and a 35% reduction in mobile service latency. Deployments in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere are further demonstrating such benefits.

Mobile data usage growth will soar for many more years, but operators can plan now so that each phase of growth does not have to be accompanied by poor experiences. Edge application controllers are positioned to be crucial with holistic view of the cell and a unique ability to get the best possible user application experiences from available network resources.

Mobile operators are investing significantly in the speed, performance and availability of mobile broadband networks. These are worthwhile and timely initiatives, according to a recent Vasona Networks, Inc.® survey of United Kingdom smartphone users, which found widespread expectations for flawless wireless data performance. The survey found:

68% of respondents expect good mobile broadband performance all of the time, with no hiccups or periods of unavailability;

62% cite waiting for web pages to load as the most frustrating aspect of slow mobile data speeds;

Consumers blame their mobile service providers more than any other party when apps don’t work as expected;

33% would recommend their service provider to a friend looking for great mobile broadband performance;

Nearly one quarter of consumers (24%) cite performance as most important when choosing a mobile operator, second only to price as a consideration.

“With consumers increasing their reliance on mobile broadband to stay connected and access apps on the go, the desire for stellar service has increased right alongside demand,” says John Reister, vice president of marketing and product management for Vasona Networks. “The need to keep pace with consumer expectations continues to motivate operators to fine-tune their networks for better experiences that encourage increasing subscriber usage.”

The Vasona Networks survey of UK smartphone users mirrors the results of a survey the company conducted of consumers in the United States earlier this year. This includes placing primary blame on the mobile operator when apps don’t perform as expected. In total, 47% primarily suspect their mobile operator in these situations, and only 27% suspect the app maker is at fault. The remaining respondents identify their operating system or smartphone maker as the likely cause of issues.

Many consumers seem to feel that their mobile operator might not provide the best mobile broadband experience. When asked if they would recommend their mobile operator to a friend seeking great mobile broadband performance, 67% of consumers would either take a neutral position or advise against considering their operator. A third of respondents (33%) would recommend their provider to a friend, however.

Web browsing appears to be the most performance-sensitive application for consumers, with the majority (62%) of respondents citing “Web pages loading slowly or not at all” as a primary frustration when mobile broadband is slow. Other popular responses included waiting for an app to start or function (14%), video freezing or not playing smoothly (12%) and interrupted audio or video chat (8%).

Vasona Networks, which provides traffic management and visibility platforms for mobile networks, conducted the survey online November 24 - 27. The questions were fielded by 1,045 UK online consumers who indicated that they use a smartphone with a mobile data plan. Vasona Networks will exhibit its solutions at RAN World, which takes place January 20-21 in Dusseldorf, and Mobile World Congress, being held March 2-5 in Barcelona.

As mobile operators expand 4G service, consumers are setting the bar high for broadband performance. Significant efforts and investments are being made, but heavy network congestion still persists, making subscriber satisfaction a constantly moving target. This year’s survey indicates the race to deliver the best mobile broadband experience is far from over as demand for better service keeps growing.

The bottom line is clear: If your network isn’t performing flawlessly, you have a big potential for churn and lost ARPU.

Mobile networks continue to be particularly prone to delayed data sessions: the web page that won’t load, the flat grey Instagram “picture” -- with caption, the spinning wheel of time over a video player. Experiences like this can be especially frustrating because these challenges have substantially been solved on other types of networks through quality-of-service (QoS) approaches.

A new era of mobile network technologies that meaningfully improve user experiences is emerging. Dynamic rate control with feedback (DRCF) has demonstrated the promise of better mobile performance positively affecting customer behavior. Rate control is the practice of modifying data flows to manage demands on resources and capacity. The dynamic application of it is needed to adapt to the ever-changing demand and capacity, such that control is applied only when congestion is impacting user experience. And feedback from actual real-time performance is crucial to comprehend and best respond to that constant change.

Trying to improve mobile app experiences? the new standard is "flawless"

October 16, 2014

Solutions like edge application controllers assess whether a cell faces congestion at any given moment, and understand which sessions are causing it and the experiences suffering the most as a result. Bandwidth is then reallocated based on application type and subscriber needs.

This is a leap beyond prior probe and DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) approaches that observe traffic patterns and congestion and then communicate through a policy control function to take enforcement action. But congestion and latency are transient phenomena that may last seconds or less. These small incidents can destroy app experiences and cause degradation with repercussions longer than the initial periods of congestion. In these cases, the information can be revealed too late by the probe and service experience is compromised before the DPI takes action.

The results of better approaches to RAN management are speaking for themselves. For instance, a US service provider using an edge application controller to manage the impact of congestion has achieved more than 30% improved bitrate performance for video and web browsing and more than 35% reduction in service latency during congestion. These numbers signify the difference between a great app experience and a frustrating one. Between a finger tapping happily on a screen or pointing angrily at the offending party.

Vasona Networks focuses on using data and analytics to diagnose and solve congestion at the cell sector level. VP product and marketing John Reister said that demand fluctuates very rapidly in modern wireless networks.

“I don’t think that’s fully perceived across the industry,” Reister said, adding that operators are often seeing 15-minute intervals of reporting for hundreds or thousands of cell sectors. A single cell site often has three or six sectors, and some have as many as 12, and hand off to one another frequently as users move between sectors at a macro site.

Longer intervals of network polling don't reflect significant spikes and valleys that occur in single sectors, in extremely brief time intervals, and can still cause bad user experiences. “We’ve seen in the field that capacity can vary by over 50% from one second to the next,” Reister said.

“When you get the valleys, the cell is underutilized; with the spikes, the cell is congested and causing bad experiences.” Vasona takes the approach of smoothing out the extremes by recognizing latency-sensitive traffic such as video and prioritizing it over email syncing and background app updates.

VVasona Networks’ solution sits between the RAN and the core and monitors the traffic coming from the internet before it hits the access network. It can analyze it by packet type and by application, and its particular emphasis is on dealing efficiently with the spikes in traffic which occur on the RAN constantly. Most of these last just a few seconds, and Vasona argues that few traffic shaping approaches take that into account. By anticipating the spikes before they happen, Vasona’s tools aim to keep certain packets – such as updates – back in order to lower the spike and keep performance consistent for real time applications like video streaming.

By contrast, another popular approach, video compression, might be overkill, reducing the quality of a transmission for the length of the video clip, rather than just the few seconds necessary, and so affecting QoE. And, Vasona argues, core-based tools like deep packet inspection (DPI), while powerful for functions like security, take too long to respond to the very brief peaks in traffic, taking minutes not seconds to act, and increasing latency.

For a growing number of consumers the smartphone has become the only communication device they use in their home, and as BYOD initiatives continue to increase in adoption by businesses, it is also being used at the office and as an integral part of the remote mobile workforce. This demand now requires mobile broadband service providers to have reliable connection 24/7, and unreliable service will quickly spread through social media as consumers transfer to the best rated operator. A new survey by Vasona Networks proves this very point as it reveals 72 percent of smartphone owners expect good performance all the time.

Globally, the adoption rate for mobile broadband services is experiencing steady growth. The June 2013 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations revealed mobile broadband penetration has grown to 68.4 percent in the 34-country group. While many of the countries in this group are making great strides towards 100 percent adoption, six countries – Australia, Denmark, Finland, Korea, Japan and Sweden – have already achieved the 100 percent mobile broadband penetration level. With so much demand, operators are doing all they can to ensure they are the go to company when it comes to reliable service, and as 4G becomes available more widely, service interruptions will be less frequent.

Over the last few years, wireless service on the whole has been improving in the United States. In some cases, wireless providers had nowhere to go but up as they were consistently finishing dead last in customer satisfaction rankings dating back to 2009.

In a recent survey conducted by traffic management vendor Vasona Networks, 72 percent of consumers said that they expect their mobile networks to provide “good mobile data performance.”

72% of mobile network users expect their carrier to provide good performance constantly

August 31, 2014

According to a survey conducted by traffic management vendor Vasona Networks, 72% of mobile data users expect their carrier to be on top of their game all of the time, providing good data performance 24/7. Consumers are also quicker to blame their carrier when things go awry. Last year, 64% of mobile device users said that they expected their mobile carrier to be problem-free all of the time.

The survey shows that 55% of smartphone and tablet users blame their mobile network providers if an application does not run correctly. That is a pretty sharp rise from the 40% last year, who were quick to blame their mobile operator for problems with applications. 42% of those surveyed said that they would indeed recommend the carrier they use, to a friend seeking "great broadband performance." Just 9% said that they wouldn't recommend the company they currently get mobile service from. Lastly, 32% said that when choosing a mobile carrier, the quality of mobile internet performance is important. Last year, that figure was 29%.

55% of subscribers say mobile operators are most responsible for apps not working properly

August 30, 2014

Vasona Networks, the provider of the SmartAir and SmartVision analysis suite that help operators understand network activities and performance, released findings from its annual survey of smartphone owners showing that there is an increasing expectation on service providers for better experience on their mobile services. Vasona said that the percentage of respondents who hold their mobile operators most responsible when apps don't function properly increased from 40% last year to 55% this year.

The same sentiment is echoed across other experience indicators measured in the survey which was participated by more than 1000 mobile users in the United States. For example, the percentage of respondents who have an expectation of mobile data performing well ALL the time rose from 64% to 73%, said Vasona. In choosing a service provider, the percentage of respondents who base the decision on mobile Internet performance also increased from 29% in 2013 to 32% this year. In summary, mobile data performance has become a major benchmark for mobile users, influencing their subscription decisions and their ratings of their service provider.

Vasona Networks survey reveals 72 percent expect good performance all of the time

Consumers have increasingly stringent expectations when it comes to mobile broadband. They are quick to blame their service providers when apps don’t work properly and the vast majority expect flawless performance with no hiccups. These insights come from Vasona Networks, Inc.’s® annual survey of smartphone owners, which reveals notable increases in mobile performance expectations over 2013:

• The importance of mobile Internet performance when choosing a service provider rose from 29% in 2013 to 32% this year;

• Expectations of “good mobile data performance all of the time” rose from 64% to 72%; and

• Respondents who hold their mobile operator most responsible when apps don’t function properly rose from 40% to 55%.

Despite the high expectations, consumers expressed confidence in their selections of mobile network operators. 42% indicated that they would recommend their service provider to a friend seeking great broadband performance versus 9% who would specifically suggest not using their existing provider. The remaining 49% were ambivalent.

“As mobile operators expand 4G service, consumers are setting a high bar for broadband performance,” said John Reister, vice president of marketing and product management for Vasona Networks. “Significant efforts and investments are being made, but heavy network congestion still persists, making subscriber satisfaction a constantly moving target. This year’s survey from Vasona Networks indicates that the race to deliver the best mobile broadband experience is far from over as demand for better service keeps growing.”

Vasona Networks, which provides traffic management and visibility platforms for mobile networks, conducted the survey online August 7 -11. The questions were fielded by 1,111 U.S. online consumers who indicated that they use a smartphone with a mobile data plan. The company will participate in sessions on the 4G technology roadmap and on video and multimedia experiences at the 4G World conference during Super Mobility Week in Las Vegas, September 9 - 11.

Vasona Networks: Users have high expectations for mobile data performance

August 28, 2014

A new survey from Vasona Networks shows that mobile users’ expectations for good mobile data performance are rising, and that operators are most likely to be blamed if they have issues — even with applications, where the carrier’s control is limited.

The annual survey showed that mobile data performance is slowly becoming more important in why users choose a particular service provider: 32% said that was an important factor in choosing a wireless carriers, up from 29% last year. However, price was still the most important factor for 56% of respondents. Meanwhile, expectations for “good mobile data performance all of the time” rose nearly 10% from 2013, to 72%.

When asked if they would recommend their service provider based on their mobile data experience, fewer than half— 42% — said they would. Most respondents took a neutral stance on that aspect (49%) and an additional 9% said they wouldn’t recommend their carrier based on data performance.

Vasona Networks Selected by AlwaysOn as one of Global 100 Companies to Watch

July 18, 2014

Inclusion in the AlwaysOn Global 100 Companies to Watch signifies leadership among peers and game-changing technologies likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. Vasona Networks was specially selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team and industry experts spanning the globe based on a set of five criteria: innovation, media buzz, market potential, commercialization, and stakeholder value.

Vasona Networks and the AlwaysOn Global 100 Companies to Watch will be honored at AlwaysOn's tenth annual Innovation Summit at the Computer History Museum on July 29 and 30, 2014.

Ed Gubbins at Current Analysis posted an interesting piece about how network technologies are constantly evolving, pointing out how eager entrepreneurs and other outsiders are to capitalize on rapid change. The RAN is named as one such business as multiple current trends are attracting new players to the game.

RAN optimization is named as a particularly fertile area for startups and Vasona Networks is cited among other key players in the space.

It is better for there to be comprehensive perspective on all traffic in the cell at any given time. How many active sessions are there? Are they video, audio, file downloads, web browsing or something else? How much bandwidth are they asking for and what do they need to perform?Answers to these questions combined with capabilities to dynamically reallocate bandwidth within the cell’s live capacity achieves intelligent management and provides best overall experiences.From our discussions with operators, delivering the best customer experiences is a high motivation. But there are even more benefits to derive from this approach.New analytical perspectives is one such benefit. Many operators are accustomed to analyzing cell downtime in intervals spanning as much as 15 minutes. Their views are typically limited to control plane information on an aggregate of hundreds or thousands of cells. With applications highly sensitive to latency and other consequences of varying operating conditions, this information has limited utility. It is better for operators to analyze networks in real-time and on a per cell basis to yield insights on local conditions over spans of a few seconds or even fractions of seconds.

USA-based regional mobile network operator, Cellcom has awarded a contract to Vasona Networks to improve its mobile broadband performance.The Wisconsin-based operator has deployed both the Vasona SmartAIR1000 edge application controller and SmartVISION analysis suite to gain real-time visibility of network congestion and improve the overall mobile broadband experience when cells are overloaded.During periods of congestion, Cellcom is reported to see more than 30 percent improved bitrate performance for video and web browsing, and a 35 percent reduction in mobile service latency.Cellcom said that it was particularly important that the video experience be improved for subscribers. By working with Vasona Networks, Cellcom helps subscribers reduce or avoid the "spinning wheel" waiting experience when accessing media."We examined several options for RAN optimization and were impressed by how well the Vasona Networks edge application controller and analysis suite could meet our requirements for real-time cell congestion management, faster web browsing, improved video streaming and a reduction in latency," says Robert Riordan, executive vice president and director of corporate development for Cellcom. "After initial deployments in a handful and then hundreds of cells, the outcome was so successful that we rolled out the Vasona Networks solution across our network."

Cellcom, an innovative wireless company, has deployed both the Vasona SmartAIR1000 edge application controller and SmartVISION analysis suite to tackle network congestion when the cells are overloaded. The Vasona SmartAIR reportedly integrates between the mobile network core and the RAN (radio access network), where it assesses when and how congestion occurs in each cell.Thus while Vasona's SmartVISION helps diagnose cell-level issues, the SmartAIR1000 monitors fluctuating cell capacity and session loads, and assigns bandwidth to each application before congestion impacts subscriber experiences. Together, the products help optimize traffic and ensure that customers have a good streaming audio and video, Web browsing experience.In contrast to single-purpose solutions that only address one type of data or media, SmartAIR1000 sees to it that the available bandwidth is shared appropriately by each application and media-type.“Mobile networks can be unruly because traffic has no regard for other traffic — selfishly contending for as much resource and capacity as it can get,” says Biren Sood, CEO of Vasona Networks.Startup traffic-management vendor Vasona Networks appears to have got off to a good start and its holistic approach in addressing mobile network data traffic could radically alter the mobile landscape for both users and operators.

The service provider, which operates in Michigan and Wisconsin, is using the Vasona Networks SmartAIR 1000 edge application controller and SmartVISION analytics console on its network. Cellcom Inc. claims that during periods of congestion, it gets "more than 30% improved bit rate performance for video and web browsing, and a 35% reduction in mobile service latency.

Since deploying Vasona technology, Cellcom has realized more than 30 percent improved bitrate performance for video and web browsing plus a 35 percent reduction in mobile-service latency during periods of congestion.

Vasona Networks has pioneered cell-level traffic shaping with its SmartAir product, which sits between the mobile network core and the radio access network (RAN), assessing congestion issues at each cell and taking action to manage service quality as needed. It also examines application sessions in real time to calculate the amount of bandwidth needed by each.

The SmartVision product provides both real-time monitoring of live operating conditions and analytical reporting about cell-performance trends. It also helps facilitate centralized management of the SmartAir1000.

Cellcom assessed several other options for RAN optimization. "When we did our research, the only things vendors could really offer us were deep-packet inspection on the backend [core], or technologies that focus on just one type of application like video. We weren't looking for something to improve backhaul and Internet connectivity because that was fine already. What we wanted was for customers to be able to surf, watch video, and listen to music and have a good experience," said executive vice president and director of corporate development Robert Riordan.

Achieves more than 30 percent improved bitrate performance for video and web browsing,
more than 35 percent service latency reduction, and real-time cell traffic visibility

Santa Clara, Calif. – Vasona Networks, Inc.®, a provider of platforms for mobile network capacity, resource management and intelligence, today announces its work with Cellcom to improve mobile broadband performance. The Wisconsin-based operator has deployed both the Vasona SmartAIR™1000 edge application controller and SmartVISION™ analysis suite to gain real-time visibility of network congestion and improve the overall mobile broadband experience when cells are overloaded. During periods of congestion, Cellcom realizes more than 30 percent improved bitrate performance for video and web browsing, and a 35 percent reduction in mobile service latency.

Consumers want more from their mobile broadband experiences and expect to be able to stream media and browse the Web with no hiccups or issues. Cellcom has long been dedicated to providing extraordinary customer care and wanted to meet growing subscriber demand for excellent mobile broadband experiences while maximizing the potential of its network. It was particularly important that the video experience be improved for subscribers. By working with Vasona Networks, Cellcom helps subscribers reduce or avoid the “spinning wheel” waiting experience when accessing media.

“We examined several options for RAN optimization and were impressed by how well the Vasona Networks edge application controller and analysis suite could meet our requirements for real-time cell congestion management, faster web browsing, improved video streaming and a reduction in latency,” says Robert Riordan, executive vice president and director of corporate development for Cellcom. “After initial deployments in a handful and then hundreds of cells, the outcome was so successful that we rolled out the Vasona Networks solution across our network.”

The Vasona SmartAIR integrates between the mobile network core and the RAN (radio access network), where it assesses when and how congestion occurs in each cell. It also examines the characteristics of all contending application sessions at that moment and determines how much bandwidth each needs for smooth performance. If any cell on the network becomes congested, the SmartAIR takes action to manage service quality.

Vasona SmartVISION provides both real-time monitoring of live operating conditions and analytical reporting about cell performance trends. It identifies issues impacting performance and customer experiences while they happen, and helps guide investment based on trends in use of cells and their resources. SmartVISION also facilitates centralized management of the SmartAIR1000.

“Cellcom benefits substantially by deploying the combined SmartAIR and SmartVISION solution to improve subscribers’ mobile broadband experiences,” says Biren Sood, CEO of Vasona Networks. “Quality of experience has become the new battleground for mobile operators and Vasona Networks is dedicated to innovations that differentiate experiences of their customers doing more than ever on the go.”

The Telecoms.com LTE awards will once again celebrate innovation and recognize achievements in the LTE community. The awards bring together experts responsible for key developments of the past 12 months, as judged by senior analysts from across the globe.

The Vasona SmartAIR1000 is shortlisted in the category of Best LTE Traffic Management Product.

A panel of experts screened companies and created a list of the "2014 TiE50 Top Startups." This list was then reviewed by a screening committee of deep domain experts. About 100 of the best of the breed companies were selected to the elite TiE50 Finalist pool. Finally, this pool of TiE50 Finalists were judged by a panel of highly accomplished team made up of serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, CEOs and well-rounded technology experts, to determine finalists and winners. Companies were evaluated on three parameters: Business Model, IP Value and Leadership team.

At TiEcon 2014, Vasona was one of 20 of the top startups from each of the five segments were chosen to pitch their ideas, and winners were announced on stage at TiEcon.

"This year the TiE50 Awards Program screened more than 2800 companies from 27 countries." said Ram K. Reddy, the program chair.

Leading Lights is the annual awards program run by Light Reading. It is based on the online publications's reputation for fiercely independent analysis. The Leading Lights program focuses on next-generation communications technology, applications and services. Vasona SmartVISION is a finalist in the Best New Mobile Product category.

Vasona Networks is an emerging vendor in the area of mobile traffic management. Its tools provide not only realtime traffic management, but insight for network planning and troubleshooting. The company’s two products are the SmartAir1000 and SmartVision. SmartAir is responsible for realtime traffic management, and it works with SmartVision for network planning and troubleshooting.

Vasona Networks traffic management solutions can be deployed on their own, or as a complement to existing network and content optimization tools.

Mobile operators deploy SmartVISION for visibility about application activities within each cell of a network, including every session’s impact on capacity utilization and congestion conditions. The new offering complements Vasona Networks’ SmartAIR 1000 edge application controller, creating a tightly-integrated solution for improved mobile network performance.

Vasona Networks developed SmartVISION based on global operator demand for a solution that improves insights into how traffic patterns in each cell correlate with customer experience and congestion issues,” says John Reister, VP of marketing and product, Vasona Networks.

There is intelligence required to extract the maximum from the RAN. Vasona Networks, for instance, is developing solutions to let operators see on a cell by cell basis what is happening on the RAN - not by sitting on the Gi interface from the core but on the interfaces between the eNodeB and the aggregation router, using smart packet inspection technologies to view data from hundreds of cells.

Mobile operators are working with a new class of product, the edge application controller, which is helping them get smarter about what is happening in each of their cells in real time. The key is to assess congestion and contention moment-by-moment, take action only when required, and also to manage all of the sessions in those cells -- not just video. The edge location, between the core and RAN, is an aggregated point to handle thousands of cells in a scalable fashion, while providing crucial cell-by-cell perspective on where congestion occurs and how it’s comprised.

Using edge application controllers, operators gain new visibility into how web browsing, streaming media, file downloads and other types of sessions are contending in cells in the network. They’re learning how much bandwidth these sessions are asking for and what happens to the subscriber experience when it is allowed or reduced or delayed. During congestion, bandwidth is reallocated in a way that ensures all users in a cell have the best possible experiences.

Data congestion can be a serious problem for mobile operators, and result in poor experiences for their customers, so how can telcos alleviate this problem? And just because 4G gives operators more spectrum, it doesn’t mean that congestion issues simply go away.

Realtime analytics, optimization, and geolocation capabilities that integrate and correlate disparate data sources allow more sophisticated services and revenue models. The immediate goal is better visibility of realtime network conditions for the purposes of SLA monitoring and reporting and customer experience assurance. Traffic triage and filtering can help reduce the amount of data that needs to be collected, analyzed, and acted on, ultimately helping customer service professionals scale more economically with traffic growth.

Examples of realtime analytics, optimization, and geolocation capabilities discussed with vendors at MWC included Vasona Networks' active management of mobile traffic at the cell edge and linking of network and application behavior for realtime insight and optimization.

Performance on today’s mobile networks with their heterogeneous usage calls on a parallel mix of heterogeneous disciplines. Voice technologies and practices should be complemented with application of data and video technologies and practices. There should be strong comprehension of all sorts of networked applications in addition to phone calls. There are lessons to be learned from multiple types of networks including those that have driven the onset of IP applications and those that propagate high-quality video programming.

There are decades of well-honed practice in a field like Ethernet about how to determine and apply policies that assure the traffic with greatest user sensitivity is delivered with the right quality of service (QoS) when there's bandwidth contention. Cable and satellite systems multiplex together digital video streams taking statistical advantage of their variable bit-rate nature to assure stream availability at the best possible quality. There's important distinctive expertise from the mobile realm to combine with these, such as the variability in a cell's capacity as devices start and stop sessions, move, and enter and exit.

The key is to apply these various disciplines at the network’s edge where the core meets the RAN (radio access network). This is where all of these different media and services come together in a large multiplex of traffic. It is also where the radio-frequency spectrum licensed by the particular mobile operator becomes the governor of capacity, bringing on sporadic congestion challenges. These come from various events such as a couple of large downloads, a group of people simultaneously getting online after breaking from some other activity they were doing together, or when reception conditions for one session suddenly degrade and the network changes allocations among all the other users in the same cell to compensate. Such occurrences could result in a reduction of the overall respective cell capacity.

The RAN is where capacity expansion has tended to be most brute force and expensive, but the edge is where more clever approaches can extend lives of RAN investments already made. A holistic, edge-based approach to mobile networking, considering all of the applications and media within traffic, can address today’s rising challenges.

Mobile data traffic is growing consistently and operators are trying to fulfill their ever changing demands by making ambitious investments towards rich applications and advanced networks. The ongoing enhancements of mobile experiences are presenting high challenges to operators. Vasona Networks is a company that has been collaborating with mobile operators to overcome network challenges and deliver better customer experience.

Vasona Networks develops platforms for mobile network capacity, resource management and intelligence. The company recently launched SmartVISION analysis suite. Mobile operators can deploy SmartVISION for visibility about application activities within each cell of a network, including every session's impact on capacity utilization and congestion conditions.

The goal now is to tie customer experiences to an operator’s RAN performance and, in doing so, help the carrier assess where to focus its RAN investments to deliver the best quality of service to its customers, said John Reister, vice president, marketing and product management at Vasona Networks.

The Vasona SmartAIR1000 edge application controller is designed to manage cell congestion. It was recently deployed by a U.S. operator, not yet publicly identified, within its 3G network. The product is also in trials across Asia, Europe and the Americas, with seven of those trials focused on 3G and only one using the controller for LTE. That should not be surprising as the 3G networks are struggling the most to keep up with skyrocketing data traffic.

“We can make the 3G network handle what’s thrown at it, and that allows the operator to focus their investment on 4G,” Reister said. He explained that data demand at individual cells looks like a saw tooth, with huge spikes and valleys, and operators must respond to the spikes very quickly in order to reduce latency.

Vasona Networks , featured in the latest issue of TMN Quarterly, folks, announced SmartVISION. This is an analysis "suite" that churns the data passing through its SmartAIR1000 edge application controller. Vasona's USP is that as it sits out on the network edge, and not on the Gi interface, it has an edge (pun intended) on DPI platforms that can see application info but not gain insight into actual in-cell conditions. SmartVISION is deployed in the NOC to provide a consolidated view of how each RAN (radio access network) cell sector performs.

“Vasona Networks developed SmartVISION based on global operator demand for a solution that improves insights into how traffic patterns in each cell correlate with customer experience and congestion issues,” says John Reister, vice president of marketing and product, Vasona Networks. “SmartVISION addresses this need with unique capabilities to learn from all data and control traffic, helping operators connect the dots between certain cell conditions and resulting issues.”

Mobile operators have vital imperatives to overcome performance issues for best customer experiences, maximize returns on network investments through efficient resource use, and identify where to focus attention in the network for long-term network success. Traffic overload problems in cells can come and go too fast for operators to react before customers start complaining. This is prone to happen when visibility is limited to control messages and raw throughput, with no insight into application use in cells. SmartVISION responds with robust tools for evaluating real-time behavior and historical trends for each cell in a network, with full contextual assessment of each session. As a result, operators can improve performance, and be more agile in responding to changing market conditions and customer needs.

SmartVISION provides both real-time monitoring of live operating conditions and analytical reporting about performance trends over time, including alerts triggered by certain conditions. This is a thorough solution to overcome issues impacting performance and experiences while they happen, and to guide investment and architectural considerations based on trends in use of cells and their resources. SmartVISION also facilitates centralized management of Vasona SmartAIR edge application controller deployments, which improve customer experiences with real-time capacity allocation based on considerations like cell congestion and session latency.

“The mobile industry stands to benefit from more big data driven assessment of network performance that operators can use to improve service quality, guide planning and respond more quickly to changing market needs,” said Daryl Schoolar, principal analyst, network infrastructure, Ovum. “This is especially true of data collected from individual cells across a network, which can paint a better picture of exactly where operators need to focus resources and attention.”

Vasona Networks designed SmartVISION as a carrier-grade solution that can scale to meet the needs of any size operator or network configuration. It is deployed in the NOC (network operations center) to provide a consolidated view of how each RAN (radio access network) cell sector performs. Data is collected from SmartAIR, processed and analyzed by SmartVISION for reporting, and can also be provided to third-party systems.
Vasona Networks will exhibit and demonstrate SmartVISION and SmartAIR capabilities in Hall 2 Stand 2G50 at Mobile World Congress, taking place February 24-27 in Barcelona. For more information, visit www.vasonanetworks.com.

Mobile operators often find themselves playing catch-up when it comes to identifying and dealing with traffic overloads at various points on the network. But traffic-shaping vendor Vasona Networks aims to give network engineers a head start by delivering deeper visibility into cell conditions and their effect on the customer experience via its newly unveiled SmartVision analysis suite.

The product learns from all data and control traffic, "helping operators connect the dots between certain cell conditions and resulting issues," said John Reister, Vasona's vice president of marketing and product.

Provider of platforms for mobile network capacity and resource management Vasona Networks has hired Robert Holditch to run its operations across the EMEA region and support the company’s expanding international operations.

Holditch, who will take over as Vice President EMEA, joins from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) via the company’s acquisition of Apertio where he was a Vice President and responsible for management of the UK IP transmission and solutions business within NSN’s Vodafone customer team. He also worked at Siemens Mobile and Lucent Technologies.

Established mobile executive Robert Holditch joins as vice president of EMEA to support continued international expansion

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. Vasona Networks, Inc.®, a provider of platforms for mobile network capacity and resource management, today announces the latest addition to its executive team. Joining the company to support its expanding international operations is Robert Holditch, vice president of EMEA.

Mobile operators worldwide are upgrading and expanding their broadband networks to fulfill customer demands for better experiences as data traffic becomes more contentious and diverse. Vasona Networks provides solutions that analyze and control live data traffic, intelligently manage bandwidth during periods of congestion for customer experience improvements, and provide analytics to guide real-time management and long-term planning for networks.

“With platforms installed around the world, we are committed to fulfilling Vasona Networks’ truly global opportunity to enhance customer experiences over better managed mobile networks,” says Biren Sood, CEO, Vasona Networks. “Robert is an established leader who has worked closely with mobile network operators to implement robust infrastructures. Starting immediately, he will be focused on supporting our ongoing engagements in EMEA and lead Vasona Networks’ efforts as we ramp up deployments in the region.”

Holditch comes to Vasona Networks from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) via the company’s acquisition of subscriber data management vendor Apertio. He managed the UK IP transmission and solutions business within NSN’s Vodafone customer team and was previously Apertio’s vice president of EMEA. He had been with Siemens Mobile as an account director for Vodafone UK and with Lucent Technologies as a global account director for Orange. Holditch began his career in the semiconductor industry with startup Electrotech. He is an honors graduate of Bristol Polytechnic in applied biological chemistry.

Vasona Networks will exhibit and demonstrate new platform capabilities in Hall 2 Stand 2G50 at Mobile World Congress, taking place February 24-27 in Barcelona. For more information, visit www.vasonanetworks.com.

Vasona Networks plays in the content optimization space, but it doesn’t perform typical optimization tasks such as transcoding, transrating, or compression. Instead the vendor's solution manages traffic at the network edge. To be specific, the company sees itself as being in the edge application controller business. Vasona sells a software solution to mobile operators called SmartAIR1000 that can be installed on off-the-self computer hardware and is placed between the access and the core network. The SmartAIR1000 makes decisions on how to send traffic across the radio access network (RAN) to ensure end-user quality of experience based on data it takes from the network control plane, content awareness, and information on the current congestion level of the base station.

For any organization serving mobile customers, “flawless” is the new expectation. Whereas it was once a given that the latest technology would also come with its share of kinks to be worked out, consumers are now less forgiving than ever. If it doesn’t work, they move on with plenty of available alternatives. Period. This mandate for “always available” services is what’s driving mobile operators to speed network upgrades to improve the user experience.

Mobile operators are recognizing that delivering the great experience that consumers demand is more than just adding capacity and speed. Sure, more radios, more towers and a move to 4G can theoretically better serve more content. But give consumers a broadband pipe and they’ll find a way to fill it. Consider how your own mobile media consumption has changed now that you have access to better networks. To combat this, mobile operators aren’t just upgrading their networks, they’re getting smarter about how to use them most efficiently.

It’s at the cell where most of the mobile industry’s interest seems to lie. One of the reasons why Intucell went for a high price is because its technology could react to changing networking conditions – when service in a particular part of the network starts sucking, its self-optimizing networking software can expand and contract cells to rectify the problem.

There are few companies that can pull off a similar feat, but one of the more interesting ones I’ve talked to lately is Vasona Networks, another Bessemer-backed startup. While Intucell shapes the size of cells to meet data demands, Vasona shapes the traffic within the cell itself.

Mobile network optimization is a hot technology right now -- no, seriously

September 3, 2013

It’s at the cell where most of the mobile industry’s interest seems to lie. One of the reasons why Intucell went for a high price is because its technology could react to changing networking conditions – when service in a particular part of the network starts sucking, its self-optimizing networking software can expand and contract cells to rectify the problem.

There are few companies that can pull off a similar feat, but one of the more interesting ones I’ve talked to lately is Vasona Networks, another Bessemer-backed startup. While Intucell shapes the size of cells to meet data demands, Vasona shapes the traffic within the cell itself.

J.D. Power found that overall network performance varies widely by service segment and service use case, meaning solution providers still have plenty of nuts left to crack, and its report goes on to quantify investment in network upgrades: customers who switch service providers based on network quality pay, on average, $17 more per month. Additionally, customers with 4G LTE service are more loyal to their communications service providers and report fewer problems than those with 3G.

These findings are corroborated by a recent survey conducted by Vasona Networks that highlights the importance of mobile-data network performance. Most smartphone users expect faultless mobile-data service and 100 percent network uptime, according to the survey.

“Mobile internet performance is becoming increasingly important for consumers, and this survey indicates just how high a bar subscribers are setting for their service providers,” said John Reister, Vasona’s VP of marketing and product management.

"Mobile Internet performance is becoming increasingly important for consumers and this survey indicates just how high a bar subscribers are setting for their service providers," John Reister, Vasona's vice president of marketing and product management noted.

The survey also revealed that mobile Web surfing is the most performance-sensitive activity for consumers, with 56 percent of respondents claiming they are most frustrated by poor data connections that result in Web pages that are slow to load or do not load at all.

Other frustrating experiences cited by respondents include delays in opening or operating an app and videos freezing or not playing smoothly.

A separate survey from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project recently revealed that 10 percent of Americans lack high-speed broadband at home but own a smartphone. Smartphones offer "a potential source of online access to individuals who might otherwise lack the ability to go online at all from within the home, even if that access is somewhat limited in comparison," the research center said.

Last year, the United State had a total of 190,000 cell phone towers, which is a huge increase from the 900 that were reported in 1985. While cell phone towers are increasing in number, it’s been difficult to keep up with the demand of mobile subscriptions leaving some networks overwhelmed and unable to deliver optimum cell coverage.

In a recent study released by Vasona Networks, they revealed that most smart phone users expect operators to provide flawless access with zero downtime or quality issues.

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. As mobile Internet services mature, most smartphone users now expect operators to provide flawless access with zero downtime or quality issues. This expectation extends to the apps consumers use, with more blame being placed on mobile network operators than any other party, including the app developer, when experiences fall short of expectations. These insights, from a Vasona Networks, Inc.® survey of smartphone owners this month, indicate that mobile operators must prioritize mobile data experience quality in order to keep subscribers happy.

Good Performance, All The Time

Sixty-four percent of consumers responding to the survey cited “good performance all the time” as a reasonable expectation from their mobile data service provider. Just 36 percent of subscribers still think it is reasonable for there to be “hiccups in performance,” “unavailability for extended periods” or “unavailability in certain places.”

When asked to identify the principal cause of problems during use of an app, mobile service providers are the most commonly cited party for blame, with 40 percent selecting them. Thirty-nine percent blame the app maker and the remainder of consumers suspect their device or device operating system to be the cause.

Data service quality is crucial for subscribers, with 29 percent citing “mobile Internet performance” as most important when choosing a provider. That’s more than half of the 55 percent who noted price of the plan as most important. Sixteen percent indicated choice of devices as a primary deciding factor.

“Mobile Internet performance is becoming increasingly important for consumers and this survey indicates just how high a bar subscribers are setting for their service providers,” says John Reister, vice president of marketing and product management for Vasona Networks. “Our findings indicate that it is no longer sufficient for mobile operators to offer a good experience most of the time across most of their network. Today, if every cell isn’t delivering great performance, subscribers are being let down.”

The survey also indicates that mobile Web surfing stands out as the most performance-sensitive activity for consumers. Fifty-six percent of respondents claim to be most frustrated by consequences of poor data connections causing “Web pages to load slowly or not at all.” Eighteen percent of consumers noted being most frustrated when mobile Internet performance causes a delay in opening or operating an app, and 16 percent cited “video freezing or not playing smoothly” as a primary frustration.

Vasona Networks, which provides traffic management platforms for mobile networks, conducted the survey online August 14 -19. The questions were each fielded by 1,000 U.S. online consumers who indicated that they use a smartphone with a mobile data plan.

Delivering great mobile experiences means being in the know and acting in the now

July 29, 2013

Now is the time to reconsider how mobile networks are operated to better fulfill constantly growing demand. Approaches to date have largely been based on capital expenditures for raw capacity increases and reducing the bit rate profiles of sessions and streams, regardless of their impact on congestion. These remain important exercises. But a new level of quality subscriber experiences is achievable by improving assessment of live traffic flows and by a real-time understanding of contention for cell capacity.

Gaining this network knowledge and acting on it require best practices from a variety of disciplines, including wireless transmission, packet-based networking, and digital video processing. Fortunately, constant technological progress is enabling new possibilities for effective interoperation across these fields.

This includes knowing which cells do and do not face imminent congestion. It means keeping tabs on each session’s bit rates across various applications, including sensitivity of experience quality across speeds. It demands insight into each cell’s conditions and contention between subscribers’ applications during congestion. It is important to be able to see roaming subscribers’ traffic as well since these subscribers produce a lot of revenue and are in contention for bandwidth.

Chuck Wieland and John Reister will be responsible for expanding market access to the Vasona's SmartAIR1000 edge application controller and its product capabilities.

The SmartAIR1000 application, launched earlier this year, enables mobile operators to reduce cell congestion and improve subscriber experiences. Operators can allocate bandwidth to applications depending on real-time usage and its nature and media type, thus allowing resources to be used more effectively.

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. Vasona Networks, Inc.®, a provider of platforms for mobile network capacity and resource management, today announces the hiring of Chuck Wieland, vice president of sales and general manager Americas, and John Reister, vice president of marketing and product management. Wieland and Reister direct expanding market use and product capabilities of the company’s SmartAIR1000 edge application controller for managing cell congestion and improving subscriber experiences. The executive additions follow a Series B financing round that brings total funds raised by Vasona Networks to $22 million.

“As the SmartAIR1000 comes to market, Vasona Networks is in a period of rapid growth, working with mobile operators to overcome the cell congestion challenges that arise with activity on their networks continuing to scale rapidly,” says Biren Sood, CEO, Vasona Networks. “Chuck and John bring mature leadership capabilities, extensive industry relationships, and a commitment they share with our full team and customers to economically achieve the best possible application experiences for mobile subscribers.”

Wieland joins Vasona Networks from Cisco Systems via its acquisition of Intucell, a provider of self-optimizing network (SON) software for automatic planning and management of mobile network configurations according to real-time changing demands. He was Intucell’s vice president of sales and general manager of North America. Previously, he led end-to-end network infrastructure, mobility, and applications sales to AT&T for Cisco via its acquisition of Starent Networks, a provider of gateways between IP networks and radio access networks, where he had also been responsible for Verizon and CALA sales. He began his career at GTE/Verizon, where he was a senior manager of network planning. Wieland holds a BS from the University of Oklahoma.

Reister was recently vice president of product strategy for Arris, which he joined through its acquisition of BigBand Networks, where he was vice president of advanced technology and chief architect. Reister was instrumental in BigBand Networks’ successful entry into telecommunications networks markets with platforms for advanced video services. He was previously CTO of DSL platform vendor Copper Mountain Networks, a consultant with Bain and Company, and an engineer with McDonnell Douglas. Reister holds business and engineering degrees from The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, Princeton University and Penn State University.

Vasona is a cell-level traffic management company. Its main point of differentiation is an edge application controller that sits at the edge of a carrier's network, between the core and the radio access network, so that it can understand what's happening on individual cell sites. Vasona can then use that data to see whether a particular cell is overloaded or underused--and then can reallocate bandwidth within a cell based on carriers' policy management protocols.

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. Vasona Networks, Inc.®, a provider of platforms for mobile network capacity and resource management, today announced that it has been named to the annual FierceWireless Fierce 15 list, designating it as one of the top privately-held wireless companies of the year. FierceWireless editors evaluated hundreds of organizations, and found Vasona Networks to be one of the “fiercest,” based on creativity and innovation in the marketplace.

“Vasona Networks’ cell-level traffic management solution lets carriers better understand what’s happening on individual cell sites,” said Phil Goldstein, editor of FierceWireless. “By analyzing traffic that’s going back and forth between the core network and the radio access network, the company’s solution can determine how many users are on a particular cell and can see what their traffic flows are, letting Vasona detect how much each cell’s bandwidth is being stressed and determine whether or not a cell is congested or the cell is not being used to the best of its capacity. Vasona is then able to, at a carrier’s direction, reallocate bandwidth as necessary to ensure the best user experience on a particular cell site.”

Founded in 2010, Vasona Networks recognized that bringing together certain mobile, media and IP networking technologies could address the deluge of growing application usage that mobile operators face today. Vasona Networks’ resulting flagship SmartAIR1000 edge application controller manages mobile traffic across all applications, for each cell in a network. The benefits include significantly improved experiences for mobile subscribers during times when cells are congested. The insight that Vasona Networks provides also empowers mobile operators to more effectively use resources as they face expensive and complex upgrades to add network capacity.

“In just the past six months, we’ve launched our SmartAIR1000, brought total funds raised to $22 million and kicked off additional deployments with operators globally,” said Biren Sood, CEO of Vasona Networks. “Being recognized by FierceWireless for our market leadership and innovation marks yet another milestone for Vasona Networks. We are honored to be named to this year’s Fierce 15 alongside so many other innovative companies.”

FierceWireless, an internationally recognized daily email newsletter reaching more than 80,000 senior wireless industry executives, provides executives in over 100 countries with a quick, authoritative briefing on the day's top wireless stories, including new trends and technologies. The FierceWireless Fierce 15 celebrates the spirit of being “fierce” – championing innovation and creativity, even in the face of intense competition.

The complete list of winning companies is available on the FierceWireless Web site at fiercewireless.com.

Sood says Vasona is gaining traction with a comprehensive approach that determines each cell’s current capacity and characteristics of each of its concurrent sessions, whether streaming audio and video, web browsing, file downloads, or others.

“The platform can then ensure that all available bandwidth is allocated according to the nature of each application and media type,” Sood says. “This capability is not possible with single-purpose solutions that only address one type of data or media, or solutions that lack perspective on which sessions are causing problems and where those problems are occurring.”

CTIA,The Wireless Association, announced the finalists for the 2013 Emerging Technology (E-Tech) Awards, after receiving an all-time high number of submissions for the competition. The awards honor the industry's most innovative new wireless products and services in mobile apps, consumer electronics, enterprise and vertical markets and network technology.

With Vasona racking up $22 million in its first 22 months, it's clear the mobile video optimization space is one to keep an eye on.

The reasons why are equally as clear. The influx of mobile data, dominated by video, has caught the mobile operators off guard. While in the past, technology has been their savior -- faster networks begat faster Intel -- video has turned this equation on its head. Now, technology isn't growing as fast as consumer demand.

In a general sense Vasona Networks plays in the content optimization space. But, it doesn't do what one normally thinks about when it comes to content optimization. Vasona doesn't do content transcoding, transrating, or compression. Instead the vendor does traffic management at the network edge. To be specific the company really sees itself as being in the edge application controller business. The vendor sells a software solution to mobile operators called SmartAIR1000 that can be installed on off-the-self computer hardware and is placed between the access and the core network. The SmartAIR1000 makes decisions on how to send traffic across the RAN to ensure end-user quality of experience based on data it takes from the network control plane, content awareness, and information on the current congestion level of the base station.

Start-up Vasona Networks fits firmly in one of the most important current trends in mobile net-work planning, moving processing and intelligence to the cell edge to ease congestion in the core and backhaul.

The firm has raised a further $12m in venture capital to develop its SmartAIR1000 platform and fund carrier trials. This is categorized as an “edge application controller”, which sits between the RAN and the core and manages radio sessions at the cell site. It also increases carriers’ visibility into what is happening in their network, in real time, and right down to individual user or small cell behavior.

The firm has raised a further $12m in venture capital to develop its SmartAIR1000 platform and fund carrier trials. This is categorized as an “edge application controller”, which sits between the RAN and the core and manages radio sessions at the cell site. It also increases carriers’ visibility into what is happening in their network, in real time, and right down to individual user or small cell behavior.

Vasona Networks Inc., a developer of platforms for mobile network capacity and resource management, has closed a recent $12 million Series B round, bringing its total funding to $22 million. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, with participation by New Venture Partners. Vasona Networks is based in Santa Clara, California, with research and development offices in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Vasona Networks Inc. has raised $12 million in Series B funding to help wireless phone companies manage traffic jams on their cellular towers.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has built appliances that can see the applications that are running through an individual cell tower and manage the traffic to maximize the bandwidth.

Carriers are employing many different tactics and types of equipment to address the same problem, but none at the edge of the network, where Vasona's software is deployed, said Bob Goodman, a managing director with Bessemer Venture Partners , which led this round. "At this point carrier networks are so congested they usually deploy multiple solutions."

New Venture Partners, which, like Bessemer, participated in Vasona's $10 million Series A in May 2011, participated in this round.

Despite the pains that mobile carriers are having keeping up with demand for bandwidth amid the growth of smartphones and tablet computers, venture capitalists are funding fewer networking companies.

Venture investments in U.S.-based communications and networking companies have hovered around $1.5 billion annually, down from about $2.75 billion each year before the 2008 financial crisis, according to VentureSource, a research arm owned by Dow Jones & Co ., publisher of this newsletter.

The problem of helping carriers make the most out of their last mile is one that this team has tackled before. With backgrounds at networking companies BigBand Networks Inc . and Divicom Inc ., Vasona's team has experience helping cable, satellite and other video providers get more video across their networks.

At those companies they not only learned the techniques that are helping solve this problem, but also that this problem isn't going away anytime soon.

"In all examples, you expand the pipes and consumers find new ways to use the bits," said Biren Sood, Vasona's chief executive. "Whatever it is, whether 3G, 4G or 5G, this problem is not going away."

Vasona Networks , which was founded in 2010, has its software in trials and deployments at multiple carriers.

The proceeds of the round will be used to expand its support capabilities as more trials convert to deployments, Mr. Sood said.

"A lot of carriers have very little visibility into what's happening in their network in real-time," Sood told Light Reading Mobile recently.

The technology aims to reduce congestion by giving different types of data transmissions different bit-rates. For instance, video needs a consistent bit-rate to avoid jumpiness where other applications that update in the background may not; so it's pointless to give those connections more juice than they need.

Vasona's edge platform works with mobile traffic across all applications, at granularity of every cell in a network. It assesses and acts on congestion based on exactly where it is occurring and what is causing it. Bandwidth is allocated to each application in real time for the best overall subscriber experiences.

The venture capital financing was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation by New Venture Partners and a strategic investor, all of them participants in the company's Series A round.

Company closes series B round led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from other existing investors, including New Venture Partners

Vasona Networks, Inc.®, a provider of platforms for mobile network capacity and resource management, today announces total funds raised of $22 million, including a recent $12 million Series B round. The venture capital financing was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation by New Venture Partners and a strategic investor, all of them participants in the company’s Series A round.

The newest financing follows Vasona Networks’ success bringing to market its pioneering SmartAIR1000 edge application controller, which is in deployments by mobile network operators around the world. The company will use the proceeds to accelerate its growth and expand field operations, while continuing investment in its research and development activities.

“During the last few years, Vasona Networks has rapidly defined, developed and validated its platform, establishing a new category of solution for pressing mobile operator needs,” says Bob Goodman, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and member of Vasona Networks’ board of directors. “This new financing positions the company to fulfill and build on the strong demand it’s experiencing.”

Founded in 2010, Vasona Networks recognized that bringing together certain mobile, media and IP networking technologies could address the deluge of growing application usage that mobile operators face today. Vasona Networks’ resulting flagship SmartAIR1000 edge application controller works with mobile traffic across all applications, at granularity of every cell in a network. It assesses and acts on congestion based on exactly where it is occurring and what is causing it. Bandwidth is allocated to each application in real time for the best overall subscriber experiences. This solution empowers mobile operators to more effectively use resources as they face expensive and complex upgrades to add network capacity.

“Vasona Networks is succeeding across our operations including multidisciplinary engineering, launching the first edge application controller, deployments with top global operators, and substantial support from our venture investors,” said Biren Sood, CEO, Vasona Networks. “Our funding validates Vasona Networks’ leadership positioning, with participation including Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the most venerable venture capital firms, and New Venture Partners, a sophisticated investor in communications infrastructure markets.”

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vasona Networks was founded in 2010, but it only came out of stealth mode in January. The company’s focus is on developing devices and software that enables mobile network operators (like AT&T and Verizon Wireless) to fine-tune all the traffic happening on their networks, down to each cell.

The company’s recently introduced SmartAir1000 edge application controller allocates bandwidth on mobile networks based on where it needs to go.

Vasona is leveraging its position as software in the network to deliver IP video and data at the appropriate time and bit rate over a given cell.

What makes us particularly excited about this category? Carriers can test software solutions on their network at a low upfront cost and see proven results in a short time before committing to a more substantial order.

“We started out when smartphones were first beginning to grow and the tablet hadn’t been invented yet,” says Vasona’s CEO and founder Biren Sood. “But it was obvious that the mobile network was going to see a lot of growth.”

“We don’t add bytes. We don’t add capacity,” says Nery Strasman, Vasona’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “Instead, we make them smarter. You can prevent an accident if you add new lanes or manage existing lanes more wisely.”

Vasona Networks went out of stealth mode recently, announcing its SmartAIR1000 system. To learn more on the company's offering, I met Biren Sood, CEO and Nery Strasman, CTO, in their R&D center in Tel Aviv.

"We both came from making the cable networks better," says Biren, "we want to do the same to mobile networks."

Vasona claims it has founded a new category of products, with the ability to manage mobile traffic at the cell level with application-aware traffic management.

The holistic view of traffic is fundamental to modern network planning. That is a theme taken up by Biren Sood, CEO of Vasona Networks, which has unveiled the SmartAir 1000 edge application controller, to address network congestion. He said in an interview with FierceWireless: "It's all about the cell. You have to manage the cell holistically. You have to understand the various users on the cell and the applications they're consuming and then you have to manage all of the that to get the cell to perform to the best of its ability.” He added: "Traffic is impacting all parts of the network. The idea of focusing on the cell, which is a very expensive part of the network, and being able to use that more efficiently, that's what this new product category is all about.”

The company, founded in 2010, recently emerged from stealth mode with various operator trials under its belt. It claims a new level of precision in the way it tunes traffic on a cell-by-cell basis rather than prioritizing packets from the core, or by following users around and controlling their traffic regardless of network conditions at the time. Vasona‟s system sits between the RAN and core and monitors the congestion level of each cell as well as the inbound and outbound traffic streams to those cells. When one looks set to get too full, Vasona‟s tools start to adjust the traffic flow, perhaps by prioritizing video streaming over downloads, or culling extraneous information from a video.

Goodman likens Vasona’s software to a traffic cop managing the flows of traffic across a network. “It is aware of what is happening at the radio edge in real-time…but it is aware also of what is happening in the content. Is it a web session, is it a video session, is it some software being downloaded in the background? It can make real-time decisions about how to manage the resource and how to prioritise the resource,” Goodman says.

Field tests of Vasona’s solution have shown a “tremendous uplift in bandwidth utilization, particularly at the peak time,” according to Goodman.

Traffic is impacting all parts of the network. The idea of focusing on the cell, which is a very expensive part of the network, and being able to use that more efficiently, that's what this new product category is all about," Sood said.

Rival traffic-shaping solutions that are deployed higher up in the network can manage individual sessions but lack visibility into what's happening on the cell, said Sood.

Using Vasona's platform, which sits between the radio access network and core network, operators can ensure bandwidth is allocated in real time based on the nature of each application and type of media.

Vasona's edge application controller allocates bandwidth in real time to help each application deliver the best possible user experience

February 6, 2013

Application controllers like SmartAIR1000 locate the bottlenecks and the types of apps and what they are doing. A person sending texts would not get as much bandwidth as a person streaming video.

Current platforms do not have the ability to make these distinctions and adjust resource allocation accordingly.

The benefits to mobile operators are significant. By efficiently using existing resources, there is less pressure to do costly upgrades. Improved efficiency leads to better network performance and less customer turnover. Carriers can open up more revenue-generating services with some of the bandwidth freed up.

Industry’s first edge application controller works at cell level and at application network layer to manage all bandwidth, including streaming media, web browsing and downloads

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. Vasona Networks, Inc.®, a provider of platforms for mobile network capacity and resource management, today announces the SmartAIR1000 edge application controller to address cellular bandwidth congestion. The platform works with traffic across all applications, at granularity of every cell in a network. It assesses and acts on congestion based on exactly where it is occurring and what is causing it. Bandwidth is allocated to each application in real time for the best overall subscriber experiences. This solution empowers mobile operators to more effectively use resources as they face expensive and complex upgrades to add network capacity.

As subscribers use more devices and bigger screens to consume media, worldwide mobile traffic is skyrocketing. Operators have invested in raw capacity upgrades and network tools to meet this demand but struggle to gain control at a key trouble point — the cell. The SmartAIR1000 addresses this frequent bottleneck with a comprehensive approach that determines each cell’s current capacity and characteristics of each of its concurrent sessions, whether streaming audio and video, web browsing, file downloads, or others. The platform can then ensure that all available bandwidth is allocated according to the nature of each application and media-type. This capability is not possible with single-purpose solutions that only address one type of data or media, or solutions that lack perspective on which sessions are causing problems and where those problems are occurring.

“Mobile networks can be unruly because traffic has no regard for other traffic — selfishly contending for as much resource and capacity as it can get,” says Biren Sood, CEO of Vasona Networks. “Vasona Networks is working closely with mobile operators on establishing the SmartAIR platform to overcome bandwidth contention problems and enhance subscriber experiences.”

Always Watching, Acting Just As Congestion Occurs

The SmartAIR1000 is compatible with 3G and 4G networks, including cdma2000, UMTS/HSPA and LTE. Inserting transparently between the radio access network (RAN) and the core network, the platform employs a variety of techniques that span mobile network mapping, high-speed packet processing, and Vasona Networks’ RateControl technology. This results in unprecedented comprehension of what media and data are being delivered by what applications in which particular cells. The SmartAIR1000 monitors fluctuating cell capacity and session loads, intelligently assigning bandwidth to each application just before congestion impacts subscriber experiences. It is a standards-based edge application controller that can work in conjunction with other network tools commonly deployed by mobile operators, including policy servers, video optimizers, caching solutions and deep packet inspectors.

“By intelligently and flexibly managing traffic at the level of the cell within each RAN, solutions such as the edge application controller provide mobile operators with the vital functionality they need to assure the best subscriber experiences,” says Monica Paolini, president of mobile technology and services analyst firm Senza Fili Consulting. “This value will further increase as mobile service usage continues explosive growth.”

Vasona Networks will demonstrate the SmartAIR1000 at Mobile World Congress in Hall 2, Stand 2D50 of Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, February 25-28.

Vasona Networks is using traffic-shaping techniques to help operators optimize networks by the cell, enabling them to address specific target areas impacted by traffic congestion.

The startup--which has offices in Santa Clara, Calif., and Tel Aviv, Israel--just emerged from stealth mode. However, Vasona has already attracted $9.8 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and New Venture Partners.

“We understand the nature of the cell, and we understand the capacity of the cell,” Sood said. “With that understanding we can get the right bits to the right applications in the most efficient way.”

Vasona’s kit sits in between the radio and core networks where it monitors the congestion level of its associated cells as well as all of the inbound and outbound traffic streams to those cells. If a cell starts getting crowded, Vasona will start tinkering with mix of traffic going to that cell, for instance prioritizing streaming bits over a file download or tossing out extraneous information in a video, Sood said. Once the congestion in a particular clears, Vasona’s tinker stops, Sood said.

As for Vasona Networks, it also can see what's happening in the network and make changes in the way video gets downloaded--in essence smoothing out the video so it doesn't freeze up when someone tries to watch it.

"At the same time it uses much less bandwidth and allows all the data traffic to flow at the same time," Goodman says. "So they're kind of like a very sophisticated traffic cop who makes sure that all the cars are flowing through the intersection as fast as they possibly can."

Team

Management Team

Vasona Networks® is led by experts in a unique set of technologies including mobile services, media processing and broadband networks. The team brings together these capabilities to collaborate with service providers on efficient delivery of rich media and applications towards the best user experiences.

Uri served as vice president of research and development for Radware (Nasdaq: RDWR), where he managed delivery and implementation of the company's industry-leading application layer switch product line. Responsibilities included interfacing with major customers to conceptualize and launch new capabilities based on their needs. Uri was previously with network search engine hardware provider Hywire and security hardware provider Voltaire.

Michael was CTO and VP R&D of P-Cube (Nasdaq: CSCO), which delivered deep packet inspection (DPI) capabilities to manage networked quality of service based on real-time application awareness, and he continued as a director of engineering for Cisco after the acquisition. He has held management and engineering roles with Conexant Systems, DEC (NYSE: HPQ) and National Semiconductor (NYSE: NSM).

Rob joined Nokia Siemens Networks (NYSE: NOK, SI) through its acquisition of subscriber data management vendor Apertio where he was vice president of EMEA. He had account management roles with Siemens Mobile (NYSE: SI) and with Lucent Technologies (NYSE: ALU), working with operators like Vodafone and Orange, and began his career in the semiconductor industry with Electrotech.

John was VP product strategy for Arris (Nasdaq: ARRS), joining through its acquisition of BigBand Networks where he was VP advanced technology and chief architect. He was instrumental in the company's expansion to telecom markets with platforms for advanced video services. Previously John was CTO of DSL pioneer Copper Mountain Networks (Nasdaq: ARRS), a consultant with Bain & Co. and an engineer with McDonnell Douglas (NYSE: BA).

Biren held a variety of positions for BigBand Networks (Nasdaq: ARRS), including general manager, with responsibilities in sales, business development, product management and marketing. He brought to market switched-digital-video, which radically expands the quality and quantity of services provided over cable networks. Biren previously participated in the onset of digital video encoding with DiviCom (Nasdaq: HLIT) and C-Cube, and was in sales with Texas Instruments (Nasdaq: TXN).

Nery was VP core technologies for BigBand Networks (Nasdaq: ARRS) where he led development of new capabilities for how media are best delivered in networked environments. He has also been a technologist and manager for Optibase (London: VTC) and ELOP (Nasdaq: ESLT). Nery holds 26 patents and has participated in multiple international standards bodies including DVB, SCTE and SMPTE.

Jobs

We bring together diverse strengths from multiple backgrounds for a shared objective: collaborating with our customers so that their subscribers have the best experiences. We pride ourselves on excellence across each discipline, enhanced by agile practices of working together as opportunities arise. Open communications and flexible mindsets are key. If this resonates, we look forward to becoming acquainted with you.

Deliver and install Vasona hardware and software onto operator site and integration into telco networks. This shall require involvement with all project related tasks, from the discovery and design all the way through to completion and live operation.

The FE shall operate in a self-reliant manner while interfacing directly with the engineering team and local sales and solution leads. This involves driving projects from inception, through live trials and proofs of concept through to commercial deployment, with coordination of local and remote resources to ensure success and customer confidence.

Drive Vasona Networks analysis suite's product strategy, define new features, and get them delivered on time. Obtain and factor in product feedback from sales team and field engineers. Incorporate consideration of GUI trends, technology developments and best practices. Work with Marketing team colleagues to align with market and with Vasona business directions. SmartVISION has external interfaces to third-party systems, and the Product Line Manager will work with partners on robust API agreements.

The focus of SmartVISION is getting business intelligence from raw data, presenting a powerful UI for data visualization, and also being a scalable management and reporting system. The Product Line Manager must be capable of working with GUI designers and have a keen eye for manipulating and graphically presenting data.

Responsibilities:

Drive the SmartVISION product line strategy and feature set

Feature prioritization and trade-off decision-making

Work effectively with all areas of the organization, including engineering, field engineering, sales and marketing

Work with outsourced resources to define the UI of the product line

Meet with interoperability partners as necessary

Participate in RFI/RFP activities with Tier1 global mobile operators

Desired Skills and Experience:

BS or equivalent, MBA preferred

Desire to take ownership of the full product lifecycle

Domain expertise in reporting and network management systems

Basic knowledge in 3G/4G mobile networks

Minimum 5-7 years in product management or technical expertise in network management and reporting systems, experience as UI Product Management is preferred

Support

Vasona Networks shares our customers' commitment to delivering excellent experiences. Vasona Customer Support experts are available every hour of every day to work on any issue with mobile operators around the world. We are here to help.